Will Smith calls first film since Oscar slap ‘poetic perfection’
Actor’s newest thriller ‘Emancipation’ releases this month
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Will Smith has expressed gratitude for his first film since the infamous Oscar slap in March.
Smith, 54, leads director Antoine Fuqua’s action thriller, Emancipation, as the newly freed slave Peter, whose escape from a Louisiana plantation gives way to a torturous journey north towards safety.
Releasing on Apple TV+ on 9 December, it will mark the first Smith film to be released after the actor struck presenter Chris Rock in the face on stage for a joke made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Since the incident, Smith, who was condemned for his actions, apologised and resigned as a member of the Academy.
During the new movie’s red carpet premiere on Wednesday (30 November), Smith spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what he envisioned of the movie, singling out the “potential service it could have to modern social conversation”.
“I thought it would be a necessary reminder of some of the roads we have gone down as a country in the past, to potentially avert any of those similar paths,” he said.
“To have a movie like this in this time for me, and even this time in my life is poetic perfection.”
Most recently, Smith made his first late-night talk show appearance since the Oscars fiasco, telling The Daily Show with Trevor Noah’s host that he was “going through something that night”.
He attributed his actions to “bottled rage”.
That same day 28 November, in an interview with journalist Kevin McCarthy, Smith said he “completely understands” if some viewers are not “ready” to watch him lead Emancipation, following the slap.
Read The Independent’s two-star review of the film here.
Emancipation will premiere on Apple TV+ on 9 December.